Copyright Variety
Brazil’s “The March of the Sunflowers,” Chile’s “Anita Froggy” and Colombia’s “Noa” feature among 14 animated feature and series projects which comprise the Ventana Sur Animation! Pitching Sessions 2025. From Brazil’s Cup Filmes and Caola Filmes, producers of Annecy Contrechamp and Ottawa Animation Fest winner “Bob Spit: We Do Not Like People,” “The March of the Sunflowers” reunites “Bob Spit” producer Ivan Melo and director Cesar Cabral, here as producer, on a project prized at February’s Rotterdam CineMart. The feature “combines the handcrafted beauty of stop motion with the soul of Brazilian storytelling,” says producer Ivan Melo. “Anita Froggy” marks the latest from Germán Acuña, one of Chile’s foremost animation directors, and producer Sebastián Ruz, behind “Nahuel and the Magic Book,” a 2020 Annecy standout, and “The Devil’s Vein,” the only Latin American title to play Annecy’s Work in Progress this year. At Ventana Sur with “Noa,” Diego Gaviria turned heads at June’s Annecy with “Crystal Iris,” a 2D anime-influenced fantasy short. Animation is spreading to ever corner of Latin America. Bolivia’s Moushon Studios is at Animation! with its first feature, “Esilda.” “Utopia,” another feature and potential Animation! Standout, marks director Rafhael Barbosa’s follow-up to last-year’s well-received “Cavalo,” the first feature from Ursa Cinematográfica, based out of Alagoas, northeast Brazil. Llolleo Creativo, behind “The Giant Little Girl,” is based in San Antonio, in the Valparaíso region of Chile. The 2025 Animation! Selection also underscores the ever building influence of anime outside Japan. Co-produced by Taiwan’s Brilliant Animation, “Life of Delphi, Astro Detective,” from Argentina’s 2veinte, “blends shojo-inspired Occidental aesthetics with a unique twist…2veinte’s auteur approach,” says Pilar Mega, at 2veinte Design and Animation Studio. A closer look at this year’s Animation! projects: Feature Films “Esilda: The Path of Destiny,” (Moushon Studios, Firebot, Bolivia) Made with mixed animation techniques, a coming of age tale for youth demos, following Esilda’s carving out a career as a female lawyer in 1920s Bolivia, aided by Illari, her magical cat. “By blending poetic animation with Bolivia’s vibrant culture, we give voice to a woman who challenged the impossible,” says Moushon’s Andy Garnica Iriarte. “Forgotten Town,” (David Andrés Mesa, Bombillo Amarillo, Colombia) A kids-targeting 2D action epic, “Forgotten Town” unveils the place where everything humanity loses ends up, from the Sphinx’s Nose to Alexandra’s Library. Maxi, mourning his grandfather, is drawn there to confront the monster Ah Puch. A parable on the importance of memory and spin-off from Mesa’s 2021 TV series, part of Colombia’s burgeoning animation scene, fresh off Mesa’s transmedia kids’ smash hit “Zooñadores” (CreaDigital). “Formiga,” (Bruno “Bask” Makio Saito, Mono Animation, Brazil) A 3D family drama from São Paulo studio and production house Mono, behind Globinho’s Annecy selected “Pipas” and Disney’s “Pilar’s Dairy.”An anime fantasy action adventure set in Kitekami, a world where kites come alive and two young friends from the outskirts, Naoki and Formiga, learn to deal with grief and goodbyes. “From the Border Within,” (Andrés Tudela, Colombia) From Bogotá-based Orion Films, which also has action crime drama “Fura” at Ventana Sur, Paulina, 12, explores her grandmother’s house, discovering a concrete wall where memory becomes a space, revealing why her grandmother abandoned her own daughter. “Combining different 2D techniques to evoke the fragile, dreamlike atmosphere of family memory,” says Tudela. “The March of the Sunflowers,” (Erick Ricco, Tubz Studio, Cup Filmes, Coala Filmes, Brazil) Billed as a heartfelt family adventure about resilience and hope in dark times, that rings true in this near fairytale about Marialice, whose father is forced to cook the farm’s only rooster. With no rooster to sing in a new day, Marialice begins a journey in endless night to find the sleeping sun, accompanied by tiny chick Little. The feature “combines the handcrafted beauty of stop-motion with the soul of Brazilian storytelling,” says producer Ivan Melo. “Noa,” (Diego Gaviria, 3N+1, Colombia) A tween-to-teen targeting 2D suspense thriller, centred on Noa who turns to painkillers after injury ends her career as a dancer. That plunges her into dreamlike visions on Mita, a sinister entity feeding on her pain. “‘Noa’ is born from the necessity to explore loss and transformation from a fantasy point of view. We’re looking to create an impactful visual experience connecting with human and spiritual emotion,” says Gaviria. “Utopia,” (Rafhael Barbosa, Ursa Cinematográfica, Brazil ) A slave rebellion takes young medium Dandalunda in search of Angola Janga, a utopian quilombo. They find it, destroyed by a great war. “But the war is not the end,” the synopsis says. Another dive into ancestry by Barbosa, a 2D epic adventure drama set in 1695 Brazil and turning around the “the longest-lasting and most organized refuge for enslaved Africans outside of Africa,” Barbosa tells Variety. Series “Anita Froggy,” (“Anita Ranita,” Germán Acuña, Chile) Pictured with a loving 2D sense of verdant forest habitat and targeting 2-6s, a little frog and her friends live wild adventures around their forest, where music and friendship turn each day into discovery, learning and fun, says the synopsis. The 26-part series is penned by Natalia Luque (“Boca Sucia”) and Leticia Akel (“Yaya,” “Premonition”). “The Forest Howl,” (José Ángel Osorio Cuéllar, produced by Axtli Jiménez Sigüenza, Mexico) Fast-tracked to Animation! from Mexico’s Pixelatl and drawn with a sharp-lined pictorial precision, “The Forest Howl” follows a timid young coyote who, to find her way home, must search for a missing ranger in a village filled with mysterious creatures. “A 2D animated horror-comedy series about the fear of feeling lost in life, caught between others’ expectations and our own ideas of who we should be,” say Osorio and Jiménez. “The Giant Little Girl,” (“La niña gigante,” Tomás Montalva, Llolleo Creativo, Chile) Positioned as an inclusive Latin-American proposal, the series sees Sol, 7, drinking her scientist parents experiment. Living in a castle adapted to her size, she and her friends face everyday life turned into an epic battle. Animated in warm, colorful 2D, the 20-episode adventure backed by a considerable grant by Chile’s Consejo Nacional de Televisión (CNTV). “Jazz & Pizz,” (Joaquín Sánchez, InLimbo Content, Argentina) After a space accident, Jazz and canine avatar Pizz are forced to land on a post-apocalypse Earth where they discover what happened to humanity. From Buenos Aires-based InLimbo, which aims “to create minimalist 2D animation where sound and music play a central narrative role, blending adventure and lo-fi aesthetics,” says Sánchez, adding InLimbo hopes to have a completed teaser at Spain’s Weird Market next year. “Life of Delphi, Astro Detective,” (Pablo Gostanian, 2Veinte Design & Animation Studio, Argentina) A 2D comedy adventure targeting YA demos, Delphi, a young astrologer with a unique gift to read the stars as living maps, opens a detective agency to solve emotional and spiritual mysteries while secretly searching for her long-lost twin sister. Produced by Argentina’s 2Veinte, whose “Richochet Splendid,” also directed by Gostanian, was the subject of a 2025 Annecy TV Mifa Pitch. “Marie’s Lives,” (“Las Vidas de Marie,” Sofía Andrade, Piragna, Colombia) Sourced from July’s Bogotá Audiovisual Market (BAM), a young adult miniseries in which an 18th-century witch braves 2020s reality to grant her cat a never-ending ninth life, trailed by Marie’s seven former souls. Backed by Piragna, the 2D studio behind viral phenomenon “Frailejón Ernesto Pérez,” which is also aiming to expand into a transmedia universe. Directed by Andrade,. a project director and production coordinator at Piragna and an animator on Frailejón Ernesto Pérez,” Season 1. “One About Vampires,” (Una de Vampiros, Alicides Izaguirre, Agustín Paillet, Newbean, Argentina) Based on Paillet’s same-titled graphic novel, the story of two five-year-old kids who go through childhood with the same level of drama and anxiety as any pair of grown-ups. A 2D adventure comedy “mixing wholesomeness with dark comedy,” says Paillet. “The humor comes from the clash between the seriousness of the subjects presented and the naive world of childhood,” he tells Variety.
